Case Number 26344: Small Claims Court

THE MENTALIST: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON

The Charge

"You want to hurt a man, don't kill him. Kill his family."

The Case

CBI consultant Patrick Jane (Simon Baker, Margin Call), understands
this dictum all too well, having lost his wife and daughter to Red John, a
notorious serial killer who remains at large when The Mentalist: The Complete
Fifth Season concludes its twenty-two episode run.

If season four was a tour-de-force, The Mentalist Mach Five suggests
a tour gone off-course; presenting a much darker and angrier Patrick Jane than
the one we're used to seeing. Given Red John's expertise at evading
identification -- never mind capture -- Jane's frustration is understandable,
but his behavior both in and out of the office has become increasingly
unsettling. The smiley showmanship normally exhibited by the former
"celebrity psychic," in the presence of witnesses and potential
suspects, has largely been replaced by a confrontational belligerence. And while
Jane's observational and analytical skills remain keen as ever, a growing
aloofness and the sense of distraction that's clearly overtaking him are causing
unit leader Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney, Vertical Limit) to seriously
question whether or not their long partnership has reached the end of its
tether.

In fact, distance and distraction characterizes our favorite CBI unit this
year in general : Van Pelt heads to San Francisco for some specialty training
(owing to actress Amanda Righetti's pregnancy), and her absence leaves Rigsby
(Owain Yeoman, Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2) feeling especially blue. As
for Detective Kimball Cho (Tim Kang, The Forgotten), he's the Rock of
Gibraltar -- albeit an over-muscled, compact-sized Rock of Gibraltar with the
best Poker Face in the business.

Maybe it's no coincidence that the fifth season caseload is somewhat
inconsistent. Oh, there are a fair number of gems that no self-respecting fan of
this series can afford to miss, but it can't be ignored that there are also a
few gimmicky time-passers, trading in the kind of cutesy hokum favored by
audiences of Diagnosis Murder, Father Dowling Mysteries, and the
like.

Warner Brothers has done a solid job with the DVD transfer -- it looks and
sounds great. Though I can't attest to the veracity of either the Chinese,
French, Korean, Spanish, or Thai subtitles, I can tell you that the English SDH
captioning does a fine job keeping up with the 5.1 surround sound track. If
you'd like, you can check the Portuguese subtitles against the Portuguese
language track this set also provides.

Also on hand are a pair of featurettes (roughly fifteen minutes each):
"The Artistry Of Action: From Script To Screen," detailing the process
of working out all those exciting booms, crashes and bangs, and "Arresting
Excitement: Keeping It Real With The CBI," which features Police Technical
Advisor Karl Sonnenberg drilling actors Yeoman and Kang, so that they seem less
like actors and more like Police Technical Advisor Karl Sonnenberg, at least
when they pull out their guns and burst through doorways.

I don't remember if it was during the episode about the murder of a dancer
in a Broadway-bound musical, or if it was the one about which greedy relative
murdered the rich old spinster, but somewhere during season five, I began to
wonder about whether or not "The Mentalist" was starting to run on
fumes, and if so, did I really want to stick around for another year, only to
see a once-brilliant concept reduce itself to ashes?

And then I began to wonder about whether or not these defeatist thoughts
were being planted in my head, perhaps to throw me off a scent? Nice try, Red
John, but you're not getting rid of me that easily!